CHAPTER TOOLS

Keywords:

abscisic acid;

anthocyanins;

MAPK;

miRNAs;

MYB transcription factors;

SUMOylation

Summary

Too hot, too dry, too cold, and too bright. Field crops grow and reproduce in a dynamic and unpredictably changing environment. Adverse climate conditions severely impair plant growth and development. In the face of the growing world population and the climate change, humanity cannot take food production for granted. There is an increasing demand for crops with improved stress tolerance and yield. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that mediate stress adaptation and applying this knowledge to engineering stress-resistant crops is therefore a key to ensure world food security.

MYB domain-containing proteins form a family of transcription factors involved in a diversity of stress-related responses in plants. Interfering with the activity of individual family members often correlates with altered stress tolerance. MYB transcription factors have been thoroughly studied and functionally characterized not only in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana but also in other plant species. Heterologous expression approaches and phylogenetic analyses indicate a good degree of functional conservation.

This conservation will facilitate knowledge transfer, and thus tomorrow's farmers may benefit from today's discoveries in Arabidopsis. This chapter reviews the role of MYB transcription factors in abiotic stress signaling. While selected examples from Arabidopsis are described, emphasis is given to MYB proteins in field crops. The potentials and limitations of using heterologous expression approaches for genetic engineering of crops with improved stress tolerance are discussed. One part is devoted to mechanisms that regulate MYB protein abundance and activity. A list of valuable data resources (transcription factor databases, transcriptome studies) shall provide fast access to detailed information and bioinformatics tools for researchers interested in a particular plant species.